Showing posts with label Forrest Gump. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Forrest Gump. Show all posts

Friday, May 29, 2009

When evil meets ignorance

For a killer time, call 723-1400.

That's the way it is in little Warren, Pa., where someone following in the spiritual footsteps of John Wilkes Booth, Charles J. Guiteau, Leon Frank Czolgosz and Lee Harvey Oswald can connect with someone following in the intellectual footsteps of Forrest Gump. Who'd a thunk it?


Probably lots of people . . . but that's not important now.

OBVIOUSLY, 723-1400 is the number for Idiots 'R' Us -- and we all know what great fun the devil can have with a useful idiot. Like getting them to place a personal ad calling for the president's assassination.

Personal ad? You mean 723-1400 is the number for the local. . . .

Yep, the local newspaper. In Warren, I guess The Times Observer is where the village idiot lives, according to
this ABC News report.
A classified ad which ran yesterday in a Pennsylvania newspaper -– which appears to call for the assassination for President Obama -– was pulled today.

The ad, which ran in the classified section of The Warren Times Observer, connects Mr. Obama, the first African-American president, with four previous presidents who have been assassinated and reads, “May Obama follow in the steps of Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy!"


(snip)

Today, the newspaper issued an apology, calling it an “errant classified personal ad.”

“The ad representative didn't make the connection among the four other presidents mentioned and mistakenly allowed the ad to run,” the newspaper’s statement says. “The Times Observer apologizes for the oversight.”
THAT'S A COSTLY "disconnect." Technically, the northwest Pennsylvania newspaper -- depending upon whether the ad is judged to be a legitimate threat against the president -- could be an accessory to a felony.

Threatening "to take the life of, to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States, the President-elect, the Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President of the United States, or the Vice President-elect"
is a violation of the U.S. criminal code.

It's a good thing the
paper's publisher came clean to the Keystone Progress blog . . . after calling the cops. Turn in a wingnut; save your own butt.

Keystone Progress called the Times-Observer for comment and got a return call from John T. Elchert, the paper’s publisher. Mr. Elchert was extremely apologetic and wanted to make it clear that the ad did not reflect the paper’s policy.

“It is unfortunate that it made it to press,” said Elchert. “The person who took the ad didn’t recognize the significance of the names. We cancelled the ad and turned the information over to the authorities.”

Mr. Elchert said that he contacted the local police who were forwarding the information to federal authorities.
THERE'S SOMETHING ELSE Elchert needs to do, though.

Let's assume it's true that "the person who took the ad" really didn't grasp what the thing was getting at. It's disturbing, but probable, that someone could be so mind-numbingly dumb and still get a job somewhere.

And that's what the publisher needs to rectify. Any employee who's ignorant enough to get you in this much trouble (and get you this much bad publicity) shouldn't have been hired in the first place.

Elchert can't undo the damage resulting from what happened on both ends of 723-1400. But he sure as hell can undo the original mistake -- the one who inputted the ad instead of calling the authorities.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Another weekend in paradise


From the Omaha World-Herald:

Golf ball-size hail took care of the golf tournament scheduled for Sunday morning in Schuyler, Neb., but that was the least of the worries for residents of that city.

A barrage of hail that hit around 10 a.m. and lasted for at least five minutes battered crops, broke windows, dented vehicles and caused "millions" of dollars in damage, according to a Schuyler insurance agent.


"We got hit big-time," said Steve Bailey of Folda & Co. in Schuyler.


"I was born and raised here, and this is the worst I have ever seen," Bailey said. "I couldn't even begin to estimate the damage, but it has to be in the millions. Car dealerships, government buildings, school buildings, crop damage . . . ."


Hail was reported from two miles north of Schuyler through town, said Becky Griffis, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Valley. Hail one inch in diameter was reported in Crawford, Neb., but no major damage had been reported there.


Bailey said he was attending services in St. Augustine Catholic Church when the hail began to pound on the roof and sides of the building.


"I didn't want to look out," Bailey said. "When I opened the door to my car, the front seat had hail on it. I couldn't figure it out until I saw the rear window was broken in and the back seat was covered with hail."


Bailey drove to the viaduct over State Highway 15, gazed down 10th Street toward town and said it looked "like a January ice storm had just hit."


"I really feel for the people in our area," Bailey said, noting that the May 30 flooding of Shell Creek had caused previous damage to the town and farmers.


"Now they get back on their feet, and this came."



FROM THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, about Iowa's fun start to the workweek:

Thunderstorms battered Iowa with winds as high as 100 mph early Monday, knocking down trees and power lines and blacking out more than 200,000 homes and businesses across much of the state.

No injuries were reported, and there were only a few reports of structural damage, including a roof torn off a small building at the state prison for women in Mitchellville near Des Moines.

The storms didn't produce a lot of rain, but a wind speed of 100 mph was reported at Dawson, a town of about 150 people 30 miles northwest of Des Moines, the National Weather Service said.

About 177,000 customers of MidAmerican Energy lost power from Sioux City on the state's western edge to the Davenport area on the east. Iowa's other large utility company, Alliant Energy, reported 31,000 customers without power.

"It started about midnight in Sioux City. One of the unique things about this storm was that it never really broke up. It just moved across our entire service territory," said Ann Thelen, spokeswoman for MidAmerican Energy.

Thelen said the major problem was "an enormous number" of trees on power lines. It could take three days to restore power to some areas, she said.

OK, THAT'S IT. It's you and us, God. It's time for a showdown!